


Be My Guest

by zysygy



Category: Ib (Video Game)
Genre: Don’t copy to another site, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-15 08:13:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21250226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zysygy/pseuds/zysygy
Summary: People appear sometimes. Mary is glad to meet them. They are happy too, until she tries to leave. Why won’t they let her leave?





	Be My Guest

The man Mary was following was kind of boring. He kept stopping to write things down and look through books. Wasn’t he supposed to talk to her more? But that’s how it usually went. 

The visitors were always grown-ups. She wanted to meet a kid, not a boring adult who was too busy to stop and talk to her about what it was like in their world. 

He was scribbling away again in a random book he picked up off the shelf. She wanted to know what he was writing, but she couldn’t see. She wished she was taller. “Can we go now, please?” she asked.

Visitors seemed to like her better when she said words like please and thank you, but sometimes she just didn’t feel like it, especially when they wouldn’t listen to her. One time she was called a ‘brat,’ which sounded like a bad word.

His pen came to a halt as he looked up from the book. “Huh? Oh, yeah. Just let me finish these notes.”

“Notes?” 

“Yeah. About those women in the paintings who crawl around and chase us. You know how they don’t follow us if we go into another room? It’s like they can’t open the doors or something. I wonder why.”

Of course Mary knew that. She was always opening doors for her sisters. She was lucky that she had legs, otherwise getting around would be hard...and none of the visitors would want to talk to her either. 

“I think I’m done here,” he said, sliding the book back onto the shelf. 

What was he doing anyway? None of the other visitors spent as much time looking at the books as he did. They had all been in a hurry to leave, to find a way out, but this man wasn’t so rushed. She wouldn’t have minded it so much if only he was a little less boring. 

“Maybe that note will help someone,” he murmured, lifting the front of his jacket to tuck the pen inside his pocket. “If anyone else gets trapped in here.” 

Mary tried to sneak a glance into his jacket, but he pulled it back in to place. His rose was in there too. What a tricky spot to keep it. It was safe from her sisters...and from her.

“I want to go home,” she reminded him. “Why do we keep stopping?”

He frowned. “I’m sorry. I guess I feel safer here. I really hate to go outside and face all those monsters, especially those women. I wish they would stop trying to grab at me.”

She knew that her sisters wanted to play ‘loves me, loves me not’ with the rose. Mary wanted to play it too, but for a different reason: she wanted to leave the gallery. Each petal she plucked off would bring her closer to freedom. 

She looked at the man. He was nice, but...well, he seemed to like it here, didn’t he? He could stay with all these books she had already read, and she could go out and explore. But...would she really be able to leave if he stayed behind? She wasn’t sure. There was a book that said things like that, but she hadn’t been able to understand a lot of it. 

“Okay, let’s go,” the man said. “Those monsters outside are scary, but I’m sure we can get through this.” 

She followed behind him as he opened the door to the next room. 

By the time they had reached the tree room, the man looked relieved. “More books,” he said with a smile. “I’m glad. Maybe I can understand this gallery and why it’s here or how it works by reading one of these. Who knows? You can discover a lot in a book. Do you like reading, Mary?”

She nodded. “I like storybooks.”

“That’s great. I loved fairy tales myself as a kid,” he said, taking a book from the shelf and flipping through it. 

“Can you tell me a story?” she asked hopefully.

“I don’t know if I’m a good storyteller,” he replied. “But if you really want, then maybe I could try my hand at it when we get out of here.”

“I want to hear one now.”

He shook his head. “Sorry, but I can’t do that at a time like this, with all those creepy paintings and mannequins running around. We’re constantly in danger, so I’m on high alert.” 

She frowned, but he continued. “I wonder why they want to hurt us? Then again, I guess the bigger question is how are they even able to? How are they alive?”

Mary didn’t know about that, but she didn’t want to think about it either. She just wanted to leave. It was true that she had her sisters here and other friends, but it wasn’t like it was in the books. She knew things were different. _She_ was different. 

“How is your rose?” Mary asked. “Can I see it?”

“Ah, wait a second, Mary.” He was flipping through a different book now. 

Mary sighed and walked impatiently around the room. How many times had she stared at these walls? Maybe she should tell him there wasn’t anything interesting in those books. But then he might wonder how she knew that, right?

She heard him close the book, so she walked over. “Can we go now?” she asked. “I don’t think there’s anything that can help us here.”

He paused before speaking. “Hm,” he said, turning to her. “I was thinking—it’s really dangerous for you to be wandering around a place like this. You’re only a small girl.” 

“But we’re together,” she said, unsure of what he meant. 

“You shouldn’t be around those creatures at all. They could seriously hurt you.”

Mary knew that they wouldn’t, but she couldn’t say so. “I’m not scared,” she said. “You said we can get through this.”

He nodded. “Yes, we can, but...maybe you should stay here for now.”

Now she was really confused. “Huh? Why?”

“It’s safe here. None of them can get to you.”

She frowned and clenched her fists. “No! I don’t want to be alone.”

He winced. “I would come back to get you, of course. I could find a way out much faster on my own, so I would be back in no time at all.” 

This didn’t make sense. What was he saying? Why was he saying it? She shook her head and stomped her foot. “No! No! No!” she yelled. “Don’t leave me! I’m scared!”

The man sighed, then glanced at the door. The book he was holding dropped from his hand as he backed away slowly. “Sorry, but...I can’t trust you, can I?”

Mary scowled. “What? What are you talking about?”

He was gone before she could take another step. She started to storm after him, but stopped when she remembered the book on the floor. She walked over and picked it up. Collected Works of Guertena. No. No no no no no! This stupid book! Why was it here? 

Furiously, she flipped to the page she knew the man had seen and tore it out, crumpling it and throwing it against the wall as hard as she could. No no no no no! Stupid stupid stupid! 

She sank to the ground, resisting the urge to tear at her hair. Why why why? Why couldn’t he let her go? She wanted to leave too. She had never left. It wasn’t fair. 

She looked up at the wall to see a new paper posted. _Don’t damage books_. Grudgingly, she opened the book again and flipped to M. There she was. Smiling. Mocking. She threw the book against the wall. 

After that, Mary waited and waited and waited, but more visitors didn’t appear. She was stuck there, she knew it. Forever. She couldn’t visit the places she read about. She couldn’t try new things. She was stuck with all the things she’d ever known and would ever know. This was it. 

As she wandered the hall, her footsteps echoing as loudly as they ever did when she walked alone, she tried to forget about all the things she read. If she could erase them from her mind, things would be easier. She could erase them like a drawing. 

They didn’t exist as colorful images in her memories since they hadn’t happened to her. She only knew what they were supposed to be like. So to her they weren’t like paintings but more like sketches—rough and vague. It shouldn’t be hard to erase them. She hoped it wouldn’t be.

But when Mary heard voices far away, she forgot what she was thinking. There was a girl’s voice. A small girl. A girl...like her? She wanted to know someone like that. She wanted to be friends. Could she be? Did she have to forget her dreams, erase them altogether? Maybe not. Maybe she would be able to paint pictures of memories in her mind after all.


End file.
